Hello all. Recently acquired an old run down 1988 Sentra. I've been sifting through the archives on this forum and found lots of helpful info before I made the purchase.
I've been looking for some time for a more economical car to replace my 84 Peugeot 505 STI. I'd probably keep it if it had a 5spd tranny but that 3spd auto really kills the performance(great car for anyone with young new drivers in the house
). My stock 5spd sentra with 3/4 the horsepower feels like a formula one car in comparison
. How's that for low performance standards?
So anyway on to the questions.
The sentra has 292000 KMs on it. The car came with no service history. the engine is very noisy. Sounds like a diesel engine when idling. As far as I could gather from the history check it has been a city driven car all its life. Also, from the exhaust makes a popping skipping sound like the engine is missing at idle(it idles ok though, doesn't stall). I figured the engine was cooked when I did the test drive, but the body is in fairly good shape so I figured to do an engine swap this spring/summer. But for now I'm hoping this one will at least get me through the winter. could the noise just be the valves need adjusting maybe? I did this once on my Peugeot and it wasn't too hard. It sounds kinda like it did on my peugeot(the tapping sound) but alot louder on the sentra.
Another thing, it takes quite a while to warm up. highway driving, takes at least 5-10 mins to get to normal temp(-20 here now but still I think thats longer than it should be). This is probably just the thermostat eh? or somethin else? Seems to be hurting my gas mileage. I'm down to 2/3 a tank and have only driven 110kms.
And, this is my first car with a timing belt. Are there any warning signs when its gonna fail? I don't know when the belt was changed on this car last so would it be wise to change it ASAP or could I take my chances and wait till I do the engine swap?
I hope to get another E16i(rebuilt or used) to swap in. Like I said, I'm quite happy with the performace of the car, just want something reliable, fuel effecient, and easy to work on, why? because I'm cheap
I would like to do a few cheap mods though. Really like that custom air cleaner whatisname did. would like to do that for example.
But anyway I've blabbered on enough. Thanks for any info suggestions guys and thanks in the for the archived stuff, been really helpful.
